Petition to fix Saruman problem in ROTK

[JRRNeiklot]

My comments in bold.

Possible Spoilers ahead!
Also, I use "PJ" to mean Peter Jackson & crew (notably Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens)
Reasons:
1) Faramir is a noble character from beginning to end. He's got no personal journey in him. He is not conflicted, and doesn't have to make difficult decisions, because he is who he is. In cinema terms, he is boring, a cutout character. Now, he's got a development towards being the hero he becomes.


Bleh. It worked just fine in the book and would have been just fine in the movie.

This is much more gratifying and interesting for both the actor and the audience.


I was in the audience and it just plain sucked to me. That's not very gratifying.

2) The danger of the ring would be downplayed, to PJ's thinking.


Just more evidence to prove he doesn't know a story element when it slaps him in the face.

3) As they put Shelob into film 3, they needed an obstacle for Frodo's journey. They decided Faramir would be that obstacle, a sound choice in connection with the reasons above. Did it have to be that way? No. Do I agree with their choices? Not necessarily. Does it work? Yes.

Cutting the scene entirely would have left space for something else - maybe the conclusion of Saruman, for instance?



1) But he wasn't. With 10,000 Uruks, Theoden's army would have been destroyed on the field, elves or no elves.

Yes, but going to Helm's Deep was supposed to be a sound military decision, instead, it's made to look like an old man going into hiding.


2) Theoden also clearly resents being told what to do, shortly after being dominated by Saruman/Wormtongue.

Irrellevant, as Arragorn originally wanted him to take the field, and Theoden chose to go to Helm's Deep.

3) Also, in the book, Aragorn is a much less conflicted character (again, see Faramir), and therefore Theoden can be, too, without harming his character. Now, they use Theoden as a means for Aragorn to find his confidence as a leader, a king.

Great, sacrifice one character (or two) to build up another.1) Why not? How many are they? Not much. It shows that some elves see that there is something worth fighting for, and indeed, in the books the elves fight against Morder, even if they don't do it at Helm's Deep.

So let them fight their battle where they are supposed to.

1) Well, I sort of agree. However, PJ wanted to give Merry and Pippin a more active role, to show the fundaments of heroism even before they are squired (Well, sort of, when riding in disguise instead of staying home counts). Instead of only waking the Balrog and stealing fireworks, they actually acted instead of reacted to something.

Again, sacrificing Treebeard's character to puff up the Hobbits. And it in no way increased my admiration of Merry and Pippin, yet it made me think Treebeard was just a tree that walks, instead of the personification of the forest.

 

[takyris]

JRRNeiklot: All I have to offer is my own opinion, just as all you have to offer is yours. As long as we both realize that that's all it is, we can all get along just peachy.

My opinion is that leaving everything as it was would have slowed the movie down and made for some fairly flat characters. I'm not saying that they're flat in the book, but that certain elements of them would not have translated well to the screen -- if only because on the screen, you can't stop the for half a page and give the viewer direct exposition on what this all means. On the screen, character is defined by action, and in order to present a more consistent message, PJ made the decision to change things.

I know it offends you, because you are, from what I understand, a purist. You would have loved it if everything in the book was included in the movie, am I right? Every line as it was, every action in place, nothing added, nothing removed. Is this correct? This is not a leading question. I honestly want to know.

It's fine for you to say that you would have loved a movie like that. I, personally, would have been bored by it, I suspect -- it would most likely have been far too long, and it would have felt dragged-out and unwieldy and flat in many areas.

So, you're a movie producer, trying to make a great movie out of a series of books that you love. You are faced with a question: Do you make changes as you feel it necessary, knowing that you might irk some purists, or do you keep it utterly faithful to the book, creating a movie that, most likely, only the purists would love?

PJ chose the former. From a marketing perspective, it was the right choice -- many people saw the movie who never read the book. From an artistic perspective, it was the right choice in my opinion -- I'd rather see a movie that does its best to be a movie, not a movie that does its best to be a line-by-line retread of a book that I could just go read instead. From the purity-of-Tolkien perspective, it was the wrong choice.

 

[jdavis]

It also nicely illustrates what happens when "the formula" becomes more important than the story.

Particularly when the story is responsible for the formula. I mean where would fantasy fiction be today if it wasn't for Lord of the Rings, yet if written today Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't get published into the genre it basically created. LotR is the formula, it is the holy grail of fantasy fiction, would the next Holy Grail of fantasy fiction get published or would it be sent back because it was too off the wall or didn't match preconcieved notions? Would we even be here at this board discussing D&D if the publisher had sent Lord of the Rings back to Tolkien and told him it was too convoluted to even mess with? Just thought that was a odd little point in one of the documentaries.

As far as the purist book arguement goes, well in all actuality I'm sort of a book purist myself but I have the very informative circumstance that I have friends who have never read the books to go see the movies with. Everybody I talked to who hasn't actually read the books has loved the movies(except my wife but she never likes fantasy stuff), after we watch them the ones of us who have read the books talk about what has been changed, for the most part the people who haven't read the books prefer it the movie way, heck one guy decided that he will never go back and read the book as it sounds terribly boring where the movie is so much more fun.

When you get right down to it it's not the book purist that Peter Jackson has to please it's the general viewing audience, he didn't want a cult classic movie with a small rabid fanbase he wanted a huge crossover audience of all the vast majority of the people out there who have never read the books. Lets face it most people have never read the books, heck most people really are not fans of fantasy fiction in general. He had to make a movie that would bring in the vast general audience to the theater or else no movie production company would of touched such a expensive production. Do I wish he had stuck closer to the books, oh hell yes, but I do realize that I can't argue with the huge numbers and tremendous amounts of money these movies are making and I can't argue with the significant number of people who are now LotR fans who were totally ignorant of the books before the movies came out. It's hard to say he did it wrong in so many areas when so many people are going to see it and talking about how great it is. A lot of people thought I was nuts for not liking Two Towers in the theater (many of my close friends included) and I have to admit I was in the minority. It's hard to say he's making a mistake with the Saruman scenes when so far everything he has touched has turned into a big mint of gold, of course I'm not in the movie buisness either (my friend with the film degree likes what he does and basically says Peter Jackson is what Lucas used to be when he first made Star Wars and these movies will be as important as Star Wars was to the industry). So I sit through the movies and occasionally twich and wince and for the most part they are pretty good but more important they are all I got. I do like the stuff he added in the extended version and I do understand the changes he had to make, I don't like a lot of them but I do understand their side of it. Heck the first movie had some pretty sizable changes in it too. At least it makes me twich and wince less than the new Star Wars movies do.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I am glad they changed the story. I have tried to read the book several times and have quit every time. I love the story, but find the writing long winded and boring. I like the movies better. PJ has worked hard to keep the movies close to the books and has made an excellent product. Yes PJ didput his mark on the movies and a very good mark indeed. I trust his judgement and feel that having the scene on the cutting room floor is probably best for the mass audience. It will be on the DVD for the rest of us who love the extended version.

More new fans have found the books because of the movies. Frodo Lives Again because of these movies.

Amen. I'm in the same boat. Every gamer I meet keeps saying what a classic the books are, and I keep thinking "I'd rather watch paint dry than attempt to read those books again*." I happen to think that a lot of the characters and scenarios in those books are frankly kinda hackneyed. I appreciate that Professor Tolkien wanted to build this mythology, this milieu to populate with peoples constructed from whole cloth. I just don't happen to think it makes particularly compelling reading.

But these movies are GREAT, especially the Extended versions. I marvel at how Peter Jackson was able to take a book I absolutely can't stand and make films that I don't know how I lived without before I saw them. He took characters I found boring and one-dimensional and turn them into people I root for, laugh with and cry over. He took a narrative I found turgid and uninvolving and built scenes with tension, pathos and depth.

As a lifelong appreciater of great cinema, I feel quite bad that you don't like these films JRRNeiklot. Maybe these movies just weren't made for people like you. Maybe they were made for people like me.


* The Tom Bombadil scenes get me every time. If I ever find myself in a firefight, I might use those pages as Kevlar. They're about as impenetrable.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

JRRNeiklot: All I have to offer is my own opinion, just as all you have to offer is yours. As long as we both realize that that's all it is, we can all get along just peachy.

My opinion is that leaving everything as it was would have slowed the movie down and made for some fairly flat characters. I'm not saying that they're flat in the book, but that certain elements of them would not have translated well to the screen -- if only because on the screen, you can't stop the for half a page and give the viewer direct exposition on what this all means. On the screen, character is defined by action, and in order to present a more consistent message, PJ made the decision to change things.

I know it offends you, because you are, from what I understand, a purist. You would have loved it if everything in the book was included in the movie, am I right? Every line as it was, every action in place, nothing added, nothing removed. Is this correct? This is not a leading question. I honestly want to know.

Some omissions I was fine with. Most of them, even. It's the CHANGES I abhor. For instance, I was okay with leaving out Bombadil. The barrow downs scene, however, should have been in. It's going to be might funny when the hobbit blade just turns out to be magical that pierces the nazgul. But I'll bet money that's not even in there. Eowen will probably do for him all by herself.

And I realize the inclusion of Arwen as a main character had to be done. Every movie has to have a female lead. There are probably other changes as well that I'd have been perfectly happy with, but some just plain suck.

Merry and Pippin just happening to run into Frodo and Sam for one. Merry had been watching Frodo for years, due to his strange behaviour after receiving the ring. But they went for the comical scene instead - and yes, I realize they did steal the man's crops in the book, but that gets in and not the barrow downs, which has a MAJOR impact later? C'mon. Perhaps you're right, I am a purist. But to me these omissions and much worse, the changes took what could have been a GREAT movie and turned it into a cheap ripoff.

A good film, but it's hardly the Lord of the Rings. I find myself not even wanting to see RotK, except to get a bit of closure from the entire experience.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

As a lifelong appreciater of great cinema, I feel quite bad that you don't like these films JRRNeiklot. Maybe these movies just weren't made for people like you. Maybe they were made for people like me.

I never said I didn't like them. Hell, FotR was GREAT. I find myself watching the films and becoming ecstatic. Then comes a point where one of my favorite characters, Faramir, is portrayed in a complete 180 from the book, and I get sick to my stomach. It's like buying a brand new BMW and finding the engine to a 72 Pinto hidden inside.

 

[diaglo]

Hmm, I never figured you for a Heroin addict.

well, OD&D is like a drug.

 

[kengar]

Re: Who solved the riddle: The quote leaves out a BIT of the context. Gandalf does solve it... but as I recall, he solves it after Pippin helps him, right? Pippin uses common sense to give Gandalf a clue -- something like, "Wouldn't they want it to be something easy, something that would let people in?" That was how I remembered the scene -- and then Gandalf says, "Oh, crud, yeah, Mellon," and the door opens.

So, the movie was not quite as massive a change as others were implying.

I guess it's some sort of mental illness on my part, but I will respond anyway

Sorry, 'fraid not. All Pippin says is "I wish Gandalf would do something quick!" because the wolves are starting to howl and Bill the pony is running away. In the book, the hobbits were totally uninvolved in the solving of the riddle.

Some omissions I was fine with. Most of them, even. It's the CHANGES I abhor. For instance, I was okay with leaving out Bombadil. The barrow downs scene, however, should have been in. It's going to be might funny when the hobbit blade just turns out to be magical that pierces the nazgul. But I'll bet money that's not even in there. Arwen will probably do for him all by herself.

Uhhh, I assume you meant to type "Eowyn."

Also, in the extended FOTR DVD, they include the scene with the Gifts of Galadriel. Galadriel gives Merry & Pippin Noldorin daggers, which -I assume- are to replace the "Barrow Blades" in the films.

I do think that leaving that scene out of the theatrical release of FOTR was a continuity error. It's in that scene that things like Lembas, Elvish Cloaks, Sam's Rope & Merry's blade are addressed; all of which end up being mentioned or used later in the story.

That said, I didn't mind the "Moria riddle change" in the movie in the least. I felt it worked very well in the scene and didn't detract from the spirit of the story at all.

FWIW, when I respond to these messages about "being true to the book," all I'm really trying to do is tell people what the books actually said. I'm not trying to say the movies should always stick to the books or even that I always dislike when they varied from the novels. Overall, I've been very impressed with PJ's adaptation and rank it among some of the best films I've ever seen. Granted TTT was not the better of the two so far and I have not yet gotten my extended DVDs for it. As far as the Saruman issue in ROTK is concernced, my only beef with leaving it out is a plot-continuity one (Pippin going to Minas Tirith with Gandalf, etc.). If PJ can fill that plot hole without the scene at Isengard, then I'm fine with it being cut. I will -of course- look forward to my extended version of ROTK on DVD so I can see the scene.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Bleh. It worked just fine in the book and would have been just fine in the movie.

Really? Heck no! I don't find Faramir to be an interesting character at all in the
movie, but goshdamnit, he's *so* much better than in the books where's he's
just an one-note-Barry-Allen-'n-Steve-Rogers-lovechild-plot-device-character.

In the movie, he's at least a guy one can relate to.

All IMO of course.

 

[Gnarlo]

I guess it's some sort of mental illness on my part, but I will respond anyway

Sorry, 'fraid not. All Pippin says is "I wish Gandalf would do something quick!" because the wolves are starting to howl and Bill the pony is running away. In the book, the hobbits were totally uninvolved in the solving of the riddle.

Well, they didn't solve the riddle, but Gandalf does give them a bit of credit. In the chapter "A Journey in the Dark", Merry asks "What does it mean by speak, friend, and enter?" [p 297 in my HM one volume editiion]. Then, once he solves the problem, Gandalf says on page 300 " 'I was wrong after all,' said Gandalf, 'and Gimli too. Merry, of all people, was on the right track. The opening word was inscribed on the archway all the time!' "

Just getting my geek credentials in

And, for the record, the SE DVD has lifted up TTT to the equal of FOTR for me as well; I also was disappointed in the theatrical release of it after the beauty of Fellowship, it just felt to hurried and disjointed. PJ redeemed it